Primary services offered by commonly used telecommunication systems include allowing a calling party to connect to a called party through a telecommunication network. Commonly used telecommunication networks include landline networks such as Public Switched Telephone Networks and Wireless Communication Networks such as Cellular Networks.
Typically, Telecommunication Service Providers (TSPs) provide telephone and related communication services to subscribed users of telecommunication services. Apart from providing traditional services (for example, voice calls, fax transmissions and the like); nowadays telecommunication service providers also provide subscribed users with a number of value added services such as Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Message Service (MMS), call forwarding, ring back tone etc. In a telecommunication network, when a caller makes a call to a callee using a communication terminal, the caller hears a call progress tone. The call progress tone is heard by the caller till the callee responds to the call and initiates a conversation with the caller. The call progress tone may include, without limitation, a ring back tone (RBT), a call busy tone and a call waiting tone. RBT is usually a monotonous sound heard by a caller while waiting for a callee to respond to a call. An RBT may be replaced by other tones, for example, songs, personalized messages, advertisements, music, news, sports commentary etc.
Nowadays, telecommunication service providers allow a user to set an RBT of his or her choice by subscribing to an RBT service. The RBT service enables the RBT subscriber to choose a particular tone as the RBT. The chosen RBT of the user may be a song, an advertisement, a personalized message by the user or even an interactive game with a caller. Currently there is no active participation of an RBT subscriber (either caller or callee) in promoting and popularizing the RBT (especially if the RBT is an advertisement) and various other Value Added Services (VAS) that may be advertised in an RBT. In current RBT service implementations, a subscriber, such as a callee/caller may get financial benefits for setting advertisements as RBTs. However, receiving financial benefits alone may not be motivational enough for a callee/caller to take an initiative for letting the usage of his RBT service for playing advertisements as RBT. Further, a caller who listens to an advertisement as RBT, while a call to a callee is being connected, does not receive any additional benefit (apart from listening to the advertisement).
Due to the highly competitive nature of telecommunication industry, telecommunication service providers are constantly motivated to increase advertising revenues. Thus, there exists a need to encourage RBT subscribers (callee as well as caller) to actively participate in promoting and using advertisements as RBTs by providing RBT subscribers with benefits.